Money isn't any fun... except if you have it.

So at the end of August we had a meeting with the woman in charge of the Odyssey program in Amqui. She told us we'd be getting $925 on each cheque. We said "Before or after taxes?" She said after. Then we made sure to clarify, "So this $925 is after all the deductions?" She said it was. It wasn't. That's not a fun surprise. Not at all. Then, yesterday, we got our regularly scheduled paycheques, nothing wrong with that. And they were an extra $450. So sweet, right?? Nope. We learned that the extra $450 was actually the $700 travel allowance we were promised when we first were accepted to the program. They just tacked the $700 onto our regular cheques and let the tax-man take his share. And as anyone who's ever worked a big spot of overtime knows, it's annoying how much they take off when the gross is high-ish. So yeah. That was crappy. This program is great and all, and I fully recommend it, but man the pay is terrible. We had what turned out to be delusional plans of taking weekend trips to Halifax and even New York. That's not happening. C'est la vie, right?? We're eating well and getting lots of great exercise (we bought a gym membership). It's just lucky there's not a tonne to do in Amqui, 'cause then we'd really feel feel as though we were missing out... more so than we already do.

Also, everyone likes pictures. Here's some of when we painted our bedroom.